~ doing stuff I like. writing about it. writing about other people doing stuff they like.

Category Archives: triumph

I entered the City of Tempe Community Writing Contest and came in second in the Adult Non-Fiction category. I submitted a less frenzied version of a piece about my dad which I wrote a couple of years back.

Here it is, for your reading pleasure. FYI, if you are new here, this is kind of a doozy.

Also, I did not spell Amy Schumer incorrectly. Someone else did. After I proofed the final version for publication. Because I can’t have nice things.

There are a few things I expect to see when I open my closet door in the morning. Piles of clothes. Piles of shoes. Socks. Sometimes there’s a trampoline.

A small reptile, on the other hand, is never something I expect to see.

Nevertheless, there he was, clinging upside down in a very awkward space between the door frame and the wall. I greeted him in a manner I’m sure he found familiar: I screamed. Let it be known that I did not scream because I am scared of geckos. I’m not scared of geckos. I like geckos. Shut up, I do. Really. I screamed because I thought he was a scorpion. He was a very tiny gecko.

The gecko blinked at me. I immediately came to two conclusions: I had a mutant, eye-blinking scorpion in my apartment ready to destroy me OR this was a gecko. In a rare act of rationality in the face of paranoia, I chose to believe “gecko” and lowered the shoe that I had grabbed to protect myself (See? Shoes are fashionable AND multi-functional. Never mock me for my shoe collection again).

I softly said “Hello” to the gecko. He blinked again. We were friends instantly.

As we stood there, staring and blinking at each other, I began to imagine my future with my new gecko bestie. He would eat any intruder insects for me and I would do my best not to accidentally step on him. My plan was flawless.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Susi begin to creep.

I yelled “Susi NO!” and she stopped dead in her tracks. She sat down slowly, never taking her eyes off the gecko. Susi may have been in retirement for the last year but I know she has never lost her lust for The Hunt. I began to fear for my new friend’s life.

“Stay there,” I said to the gecko and ran off to search for a gecko-saving device.

I came back with some generic Target tupperware. Susi had inched closer to the closet, looking ever like the lioness ready to pounce. I turned to the gecko. “Gecko, I know you want to stay but we have to get you out of here right now,” I said insistently. I slowly began to lower the rescue device over his little body. He ran away from me, straight down the wall to the carpet. Susi’s tail flicked hungrily.

I started to become desperate, pleading with him, “Gecko, if you don’t let me catch you, you are going to die!” He blinked but remained still. Slowly, I began to lower the tupperware again. This time he didn’t move. That gecko allowed me to put him in the tupperware. He remained perfectly still as I walked him to the door. I stepped outside and placed him on the ground.

“You’re safe now, Gecko,” I said solemnly. “Be free.” He blinked at me one last time and skittered off into the distance.

I saved a life that day. I communicated with that gecko, a kindred spirit of the Planet Earth. He let me catch him and I saved his life.

1. “Third Star to the Left” (the old blog name) took too long to say.2. “No Pants”is a little too free-wheeling for me.3. “Sans-Culottes” is a sneaky way of saying “no pants.” But it’s French and I don’t speak French.

Back in my pre-adolescent days, when my shoe options were limited, my shoelaces were constantly coming untied. I tied good bows. Excellent bows, really. They just didn’t stick around long. My mom said I was too hard on my feet. I can’t decide if I should blame that on the tap dancing or if I just wanted to show the ground that I meant business.

Anyway, it got to the point where I would just never untie my shoes. I would create double-knotted monstrosities and leave them intact as long as possible. I developed a violent (yet surprisingly graceful) way of kicking off my shoes that both kept the laces tied and minimized the whole take-off-your-shoes-when-you-come-inside-DON’T-GET-THEM-ON-THE-CARPET process. It was quick. It was efficient. I didn’t have time to deal with laces. They brought me down. I had things to do. I needed to go from bike riding mode to nose stuck in a book mode with as little transition time as possible.

Now that I have an ever-growing number of grown-up shoes at my disposal, I own a grand total of three pairs of shoes with laces. There is an entire PANTHEON of shoes that do not require them: boots, flip flops, wedges, sandals, espadrilles, ballet flats, high heels, Mary Janes, slippers, the list goes on and on.